Reading for the Logic Stage

Full-year course. Reading for the Logic Stage is designed to engage middle grade students in reading and literary discussion. Students will come together with their instructor once a week to talk about that week’s reading. The instructor will provide prompts for class discussion; these questions will guide that week’s discussion. Students will also be given the opportunity to serve as discussion facilitators throughout the semester.

Example Syllabus (Download the PDF)

Required Texts:  

• 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne, ISBN 9781853260315
• Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, ISBN 9780486275437
• Amos Fortune, Free Man by Elizabeth Yates, ISBN 9780140341584
• The Birchbark House by Louise Erdrich, ISBN 9780786814541
• The Complete Folk & Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm by Wilhelm Grimm and Jacob Grimm (Wisehouse Classics – The Complete and Authoritative Edition), ISBN 9789176372364
• The Crucible by Arthur Miller, ISBN 9780143129479
• El Deafo by Cece Bell, ISBN 9781419712173
• The Great Fire by Jim Murphy, ISBN 9780439203074
• The Hobbit: Illustrated Edition by J.R.R. Tolkien (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), ISBN 9780544174221
• I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban by Malala Yousafzai with Christina Lamb, ISBN 9780316322423
• Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, ISBN 9780486828060
• Murder on the Orient Express: A Hercule Poirot Mystery by Agatha Christie, ISBN 9780062693662
• Navigating Early by Clare Vanderpool, ISBN 9780307930651
• Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw, ISBN 9780486282220
• The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett, ISBN 9780064401883
• To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, ISBN 9780060935467
• The Winter Room by Gary Paulsen, ISBN 9780545085342
• Poems:
  • Christina Rossetti, “A Birthday” and “In the Bleak Midwinter”
  • Edgar Allan Poe, “Annabel Lee” and “The Raven”
  • Langston Hughes, “Harlem” and “Mother to Son”
  • Margarita Engle, “Tula [“Books are door-shaped”]” and “Turtle Came to See Me”
  • Robert Frost, “Desert Places” and “Out, Out—”
  • William Wordsworth, “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” and “The World Is Too Much With Us”
  • Wisława Szymborska, “Advertisement” and “Dreams”
  • Yusef Komunyakaa, “Facing It” and “Slam, Dunk, & Hook”

Class meets once per week for 50-55 minutes.

Class cap: 20 students.

Designed for grades 6-8.